the attempt to impose

upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen

write it all down

just the truth, no rhymes, no embellishments, no adjectives

did you know that dickens

invented thirteen thousand characters? thirteen thousand! that's a character a day for the whole of his working life. what have I done today? dropped the kids off at school, listened to the new National album, played a stupid game on my computer... that's why I'm not dickens: kids. dickens' wife would've done the school run. I'm all for feminism but it's cost me my one shot at immortality.

coastal people

never really know what the ocean symbolizes to land-locked inland people - what a great distant dream it is, present but unseen in the deepest levels of subconsciousness, and when they arrive at the ocean and the conscious images are compared with the subconscious dream there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be so stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed.

quality for sheep

is what the shepherd says. and if you take a sheep and put it up at the timberline at night when the wind is roaring, that sheep will be panicked half to death and will call and call until the shepherd comes, or comes the wolf.

(1781) our age is the genuine age

of criticism, to which everything must submit. religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. but in this way they excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot lay claim to that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public examination

the church of reason

he didn't get whipped. he didn't work. and the cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just going to have to creak along a little slower without him.

this is a tragedy, however, only if you presume that the cart of civilization, "the system", is pulled by mules. this is a common, vocational, "location" point of view, but it's not the Church attitude.

the Church attitude is that civilization, or "the system" or "society" or whatever you want to call it, is best served not by mules but by free men.

looking in the mirror

staring back at me, isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament. a bit melodramatic, I guess... but then again, my heart has been broken.

inequality should not

be woven into the fabric of our lives, people of compassion and goodwill should never journey without hope, and no injustice should endure forever.

it is a pity

that so many young writers drawn from the proletariat can make no better use of their working class experience than as material for introspective novels

she told me not to step on the cracks

I told her not to fuss and relax
pretty little face stopped me in my tracks
but now she sleeps with one eye open
that's the price you pay

the steer who had been gored

had gotten off his feet and stood against the stone wall. none of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd.

I don't smoke

I drink only occasionally, and I'd sooner saw my own feet off than touch anything harder than a double espresso. I don't want to get out of my head: that's where I live.

victory is mine

bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land

but do you know what I've always wanted to do?

I would pick it up, throw its back legs over my shoulder and drag it through the snow to this little cabin. and there, I'd hang it up between a couple of trees, cut it open, drain it, dress it. and then I'd take my big hunting knife and I'd cut this loin, right out of the side.

and I'd go into the cabin and there'd be this woman, waiting for me. standing by one of those old stoves with a big black pipe. and I'd hand it to her, and she'd put it in a cast-iron skillet and then I'd sit at the table. and she'd bring it to me. and I'd wipe my knife on my knee.

and then I would eat it, while she watches.

recently I've been thinking

that I needed to empty the backpack, before I knew what to put back in it.

I remember, one morning

getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. you know, that feeling? and I remember thinking to myself: so this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. and of course there will always be more.

it never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. it was happiness. it was the moment. right then.

doctor, what is happening to me?

palpitations
my mind's diseased
even my vision is impaired
I'm losing my hair

(вчера станаха точно четири години от началото на този блог. благодаря на все още четящите.)

I paused to listen to the silence

my breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. the day was dying, the night being born - but with great peace.

in that instant I could feel no doubt about man's oneness with the universe.

2+2=5

go and tell the king
that the sky is falling in
when it's not

my heroes had the heart

to lose their lives out on a limb
and all I remember
is thinking
I want to be like them

who is speaking in this way?

... it will always be impossible to know, for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, and that literature is precisely the invention of this voice, to which we cannot assign a specific origin: literature is that neuter, that composite, that oblique, into which every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.